BGS Beckett Grading Tip: Centering

Of the four Becket Grading Service (BGS) subgrades -- centering, corners, edges, and surface -- the card's centering should be the easiest for you to evaluate on your own.  The only tool you're really need is a ruler.

It's important to keep in mind what makes for a good centering subgrade.  Beckett's own website provides guidance on this issue:

Pristine 10 centering must be: "50/50 all around on the front and 60/40 or better on the back."  

Gem Mint 9.5 centering must be: "50/50 one way, 55/45 the other way on the front, and 60/40 or better on the back."

Mint 9.0 centering must be: "55/45 both ways on the front, and 60/40 or better on the back."  

Understanding what the above language means is critical to making sure you're only submitting cards for grading which should receive a 10 or 9.5 on its centering subgrade.

The first important note to take away from the above language is that the card's front centering is way more important to obtaining a good centering subgrade than the card's back centering.  Even with 60/40 centering on the back of the card you still can get a 9.0, 9.5 or 10 subgrade on the centering subgrade depending on the card's front centering.

The second important note to take away from the above language is that to get a centering subgrade of 10, the card's front centering must be 50/50 all around on the front.  This means that the card should not be off-centered left to right or top to bottom.

The third important note to take away from the above language is that if the front of your card is off-centered both left to right and top to bottom, then you can only get as high as a 9.0 subgrade on centering (although you certainly might get lower).  A subgrade of 9.0 on centering allows for the card's front centering to be off both ways, but only by a small margin of 55/45 both ways.  However, to get a subgrade of 9.5 on centering then the card's front centering must be 50/50 one way and only 55/45 the other way.

In conclusion, if your card is off-centered on the front in both directions, meaning top/bottom and left/right, then there is no way you're going to get a 9.5 subgrade on centering.  Most likely you're going to get a subgrade of 9.0 or less on centering.  This can hurt your overall grade significantly as since the general BGS rule is that your final grade cannot be more than 0.5 higher than your lowest subgrade.  (I've covered the basics of the BGS grading formula in this previous post.)

Centering is one of the easiest subgrades for you to control and measure when you're buying cards either on eBay or COMC.  If I'm buying a card on eBay or COMC which I would like to submit for BGS grading, then I am very careful to evaluate its centering in the pictures or scans.  Since COMC uses high quality scans on their website, this makes measuring centering very easy.  I'll often enlarge the scans and use a ruler to measure the centering on the card to make sure it will garner a high subgrade.

Keep the above tips in mind when choosing cards to submit for BGS grading.  There should be no excuses for not getting a 9.5 or higher on your cards' centering subgrade if you know the BGS grading criteria and are careful to evaluate your card's centering.